It cost CWRU $18 per phone line per month, so discontinuing service saves roughly $280,000 a year, said Alma Sealine, director of housing.

In recent years, she said, less than three percent of the 3,800 students in residence halls activated a voice mail account for the landline phone service.

"The cellphone has become their primary phone connection to everything, from contacting friends to ordering pizza," she said.

Decades ago, college students lined up in halls or common areas to use house phones connected to the university phone system. Or they used pay phones in booths. When the modern telephone jack was introduced in 1970, residence halls were wired for telephone service and phones were installed in rooms.

In recent years, phones were removed from dorm rooms at most Ohio campuses and students had to provide their own if they wanted service.

At Kent, the university paid about $14 a month for roughly 3,500 lines in dorms,but only 214 were used in the fall of 2009 compared to 1,260 in 2006, said George Edmiston, a business analyst with residence services.

So officials decided to redirect money that would have been spent on telephone lines toward completing a wireless Internet network in all residence halls, he said.

"The usage [of phones] was just so minimal it was like we were wasting money," Edmistonsaid. "We figured out we could use those same funds and increase a service to the students."

Senior Kevin Papp said most students didn't even know there was a phone jack in their room but are thrilled that the dorms will be wireless.

"I think it's a good tradeoff," said Papp, 21, executive director of undergraduate student government. "I don't know anyone without a cellphone. If I did, they wouldn't be in college."

When he lived in a residence hall, he said, he plugged in one of his parents' old phones.

"I maybe used it once, when I either couldn't find my cellphone or the battery was dead," he said.

Papp said students have access to courtesy phones across campus. At Kent and CWRU, as well as other campuses, telephones are availablein common areas in dorms. Students alsocan request a phone in their room, but may have to pay.

Kent students will be charged a $65 activation fee and $60 per semester. Miami University students pay $18 a month for phone service.

Telephone lines were installed in the new Euclid Commons housing complex at Cleveland State University. But no student has requested a phone, said Bill Wilson, chief information officer.

Fewer than 100 of 3,200 on-campus residents requested phone service at the University of Akron last year, which recently changed its policy and does not provide the service unless it's requested.

Oberlin College offers phone service in each room and provides a phone if a student requests one, said Molly Tyson, director of residential education. Last fall, 136 students checked out phones, she said.

"Not all of our students have cellphones, and they don't always work in residence halls," she said. "Our students come from all over the country and have lots of different wireless service providers. Some don't get good service in this area."

This may be the last year Kenyon College, which has a phone in every dorm room, will offer phone service to students unless they request it, said Matt Troutman, interim director of student life.

Two phone companies have put up towers in hilly Gambier, in Knox County, in recent years so students switch to those plans to get service he said.

"The phones in rooms are really not used very much," he said.

Ohio State University saved more than $600,000 a year when it decided in 2009 not to purchase phone service for all dorm rooms, said Thyrone Henderson, associate director of university residences.

It installed telephones in hallways of residence halls, he said.

"Actually in a couple of instances we found some of the old [telephone] infrastructure," he said, referring to a time when a hall phone was the only one available to a student.

New phones were placed in those locations.

This is the third year Baldwin-Wallace will not provide phone service to students, said spokesman George Richard. It no longer pays for 960 phone lines and saves about $38,000 a year.

"People can request them and there is no charge," he said. "We had one person call late in the school year asking for his phone to be activated because his cellphone service had been shut off."

Perhaps his first call on the landline was to ask mom and dad for more money.